by Linda Conrad
“I cannot leave until my woman and I retrieve the son that was stolen from her.” The stranger called Shakir also spoke in an easy tone. “I am her protector. Her shadow—until the day the sun shines for her once again. Where she goes, I go.”
“Her son. But not your son. Then she is not your first wife?”
“No,” the whispered answer was almost too low for Matin to hear. “But she and her son are my charges, Kalil. At least until we can leave Zabbarán.”
“Do you know where to look for this boy?”
“She has been told he is in the small valley town below the mountain that the Bedouin call Al Dia-Attuh.”
“Ah. But that is many days’ walk, following the setting sun and across rough terrain if you wish to travel the fastest route.”
“That is so. But it is a journey of her heart. We must go.”
“I would offer a suggestion, cousin. Horses could make your journey quicker.”
“As you can see, my prince, we have no horses. But that’s a fine suggestion.” The stranger chuckled and Kalil offered him a cup of cardamom coffee.
Young Matin decided he had heard enough. It was time for him to make a strategic retreat before someone caught him listening.
But he now had a piece of information that could be worthwhile to the Taj. He knew where the stranger and the beauty were headed. He hoped the Taj were in a generous mood.
Matin was sure the Taj would kill the tall warrior stranger if they could catch him. But Matin would not let concern for another family’s son stop him from making a trade. He had needs.
Nikki stretched and came awake, reclining on a bed of blankets. She felt rested and clean. The Bedouin women had allowed her to use a bowl of their precious well water to wash, and then offered her one of their own dresses to wear. It was amazing how much better a situation could seem with warm water, fresh clothes and eight hours of sleep.
Lying flat on her back and easing herself awake, she noticed it was too warm in the small tent where she’d fallen asleep. Too warm and too claustrophobic. Earlier, her hostess had shown her to this place and said the tiny tent belonged to a newly married couple who’d given permission for her to rest for the day.
A bit blurry-eyed, Nikki was surprised that she could still see in the dim light of the tent. She wondered that dusk had not arrived yet. It seemed as if she’d slept forever.
“You’re awake.” Shakir’s deep voice threw her into a minor panic as she rose up on her elbows and looked over at him. “Are you hungry?” he asked casually.
His voice sounded so steady that she relaxed. “What are you doing in here? I thought the women and men stayed in different tents. Will you upset the sheik?”
“This tent is made for a resting couple. The sheik offered to let us use it.”
“Did you sleep here?” Next to her? Nikki didn’t know how she felt about that. They’d been a couple once, but they had destroyed that relationship. What would she do if he offered her a chance to change history?
“For a few hours,” he replied. “But I’m well rested and ready to leave this place. The Bedouin tribe will be moving out after dark. They’ve offered to share their meager meal with us first.”
“Are they leaving because of the Taj?” Nikki hoped it wasn’t because of her coming to their camp. She would hate to be the cause of such turmoil to the people who had been this kind to them.
Shakir reached over and used his fingertips to smooth out the frown lines on her forehead. “The sheik does have some concern about his tribe being fit enough to do battle with the Taj. They grow weaker without the protein they normally eat. But his bigger concern is the lack of grasses on this mesa. None of their sheep will survive if they don’t move on soon.”
“Will they leave Zabbarán?”
Shakir nodded. “I have offered them the pack mule to make their journey easier. But I think they might eat the scrawny thing before they reach their next grazing land.”
Nikki shivered in the heat. “I don’t want to hear about it.”
Shakir gave her one of his trademark self-depreciating grins and his eyes became that gooey chocolate mixture of concern and sexual interest again. “Nomad life is bloody hard, Nik. Desert peoples must contend with many things you might not want to hear about in order for them to survive. But these Bedouin tribesmen are my mother’s kin. I…uh…spent much of my childhood living in their tents.”
He’d made that statement as if he were ashamed of his childhood—and these people. But why? Just because people were different didn’t mean they were somehow less.
She thought if she asked him to talk about his childhood experiences, maybe he would explain what was going on behind that odd expression on his face. Most of the time he looked like he would like to eat her for supper. She knew the feeling well. She’d felt it herself more than once.
But every now and then, the expression in his eyes made it seem as if he was slightly afraid of her. Not afraid for her as she’d originally thought, but afraid of her. Her? She was a good nine or ten inches shorter and maybe eighty pounds lighter. What on earth was going on in the man’s head?
Nothing about him was simple.
“We have a little time before supper,” she said softly. “Tell me about your childhood. We never spoke of it—before.”
Shakir palmed her cheek with a touch so soft she was reminded of the silken baby powder she’d used on William. But Shakir had barely touched her before the electricity began rippling along the skin on her arms. She felt a sudden breathlessness, and a heat far stronger than the desert sun.
His eyes filled with sensuality as she tried to avoid his gaze. The palms of her hands tingled. Her breasts felt sensitive and ached. Her pulse raced.
Her body was sliding away from her and her control was slipping into oblivion. Worse, he knew what his touch was doing to her.
Swallowing hard, she tried to slow them both down by asking again. “Talk to me, Shakir. Since we can’t leave yet, I want to know more about you.”
He pulled his hand back, fisted it and shook his head. “There’s nothing much to tell.”
“I disagree. Start at the beginning. You have two brothers…”
“Yes,” he said reluctantly. “One older and one younger. Darin is older. And you met my younger brother, Tarik, when we brought you and the other women out of Umar’s fortress. Tarik likes to think he’s smarter and tougher than the rest of us in the family. But the truth is he’s a chameleon. He learned from an early age how to put on an act, become whoever he wanted to become.” Shakir’s voice wound down as he finished telling the story of his brother.
She needed to keep him talking and not tempted to do other things. “Your mother died when you three boys were still children, isn’t that right?”
Shakir would rather not talk about himself. But he understood what she was doing. Trying to take their minds off finding themselves together—alone with nothing to do for a half hour before they could be on their way again. In their distant past, any stray free moments had always been filled with touching, with tasting and with learning each other’s desires.
He remembered it all too well. Not enough time could ever go by to make him forget that she had loved to have the back of her neck kissed. And the inside of her thighs stroked.
But those kinds of thoughts now would only lead them into a situation neither of them could afford. In addition to that, she needed to better understand what kind of man he was before he ever touched her again.
Perhaps this was as good a time as any. “Yes,” he reluctantly answered. “I was ten when my mother died. Darin was fourteen and Tarik was five years old.”
“That must have been hard on all of you.” She reached out to push a stray strand of hair off his forehead.
Shakir inhaled deeply. “You have no idea. Our father is…dedicated to the Kadirs’ business interests. He spent the first few years wallowing in his own grief at the loss of his wife. Rather than face reality, our father simply abandoned us
to be raised by employees until each of us was old enough to leave home for our education.”
“I was also raised by employees,” Nikki told him sympathetically. “Nannies and housekeepers. I know how hard that can be. I’m sorry.”
He didn’t want her pity, but he also felt compelled to tell her the truth. “Darin left home for boarding school in the U.S. almost immediately. I was at a loss without both my big brother and my parents. It affected me deeply. I ended up with a difficult stutter.”
“Your voice? Really? I’ve never noticed any problems. How did you find a cure?”
“There is no cure, Nik. But with self-control and practice it can be conquered. Even now I have to think about my speech every time I open my mouth. As a boy my father sent me to specialists all over the world, but it was my mother’s father who made the biggest difference.”
“How can that be? Didn’t you say that your grandfather was a member of this Bedouin tribe?”
“I did, and he was. My grandfather was their sheik, the leader of this tribe before his death a few years ago. His preference would’ve been for all of his grandsons to abandon the Kadir family after our mother’s death and join his tribe. He insisted that each of us must learn to become his version of adult men. But my father would only send me—the one that caused him the most concern.”
“Because of the stuttering?”
Shakir screwed up his mouth and glanced away for a second, not willing to look at her as he told his story. “Yes. And my grandfather assured my father that he knew of a cure.”
“But you said…”
He turned around to face her rather than be a coward. “That there is no true cure. Right. But my grandfather had a plan.” The memories suddenly swamped Shakir and he had to swallow hard and force them back.
“Uh…” Nikki put her hand to her mouth. “I don’t like the look on your face—as though it’s painful to think of the old times. Don’t tell me. Think of something else. Can’t we leave now?”
He softened his voice. “You know we must wait. But memories shouldn’t hurt people. Only people can hurt people. My grandfather loved me, I know he did. But he didn’t believe that physical pain was a bad thing. To him, experiencing pain was what made men brave and clearheaded.”
Hesitating for only a moment, Shakir decided it was time for Nikki to understand. She had never seen him without long sleeves or completely naked. He’d been careful not to make it seem like a big deal. But now she must see what he had hidden from her and from everyone in the past, even if it meant that the two of them could never again be close. He unbuttoned the soft white linen shirt that Kalil had loaned him to wear and slid his arms free of the long sleeves.
“Oh, my God.” Nikki gasped and put her hands to her eyes as if she would blot out the sight. “Why didn’t I already know those scars were there? Is this why you never completely disrobed when we were together?”
She exhaled and then gazed at him with questions in her eyes. “Your grandfather did this to you. How could he?”
“These scars are nothing that he would not have done to any of the other young men in his tribe.” Shakir stared down at his own arms. At the hundreds of burn marks and knife wound scars. It wasn’t a pretty sight.
“Even Kalil has a few of these same scars,” he added. “Each young man must experience the pain and earn his own scars. These are marks designating the changeover time when a youth becomes a man of the tribe. It makes us all more brothers than cousins.”
“This many scars? Do all the men in the tribe look the same?”
“Not exactly the same. I was different. Special. I was given a new mark for every time I slipped up and stuttered. My grandfather believed that as my will grew stronger through the pain, I would be better able to fight off my affliction. He was right.”
Nikki placed her fingers against the deep gashes, touching each as if she could heal them with the power of her mind. Her touch was gentle, empathetic and—sensual.
Shakir could barely fathom how often he had dreamed of her touching him just this way. Hundreds of times at least. Perhaps millions.
Once he would’ve given anything for her to look past the ugliness and find the man underneath. But he had never given her that chance. Now that she was living his dream, he knew he could not let her continue. This was not the place and it was not yet their hour.
She still didn’t comprehend what kind of a man he really was. What he was capable of doing. To her, these marks were only the outward signs of what had been inflicted upon him. She did not understand that to survive these wounds, this place, he’d had to become as ruthless as his grandfather. She had no way of knowing what a savage nature lurked beneath his more civilized, British-trained exterior.
Capturing her fingers with his hands to hold them still, he said, “We must go. We’ll join the tribe for a light meal and then be on our way. Tonight’s journey is a difficult one and I want to be miles farther up in the mountains before nightfall.”
She tilted her head, stared him right in the eyes and then sighed. “You’re right. We have to reach my son. Soon. We can’t let ourselves be sidetracked.”
She stood and reached for a black, rectangular scarf like the ones used by Bedouin women. “Will you help me with this?”
He studied her in the soft light. She was clothed in one of the loose, unencumbered dresses of the Bedouin women in this tribe. It was midnight-blue with wide sleeves and a sash tied around the hips. Except for her coloring, Nikki could’ve easily passed for a wife of one of the desert dwellers.
Helping her wrap the head scarf around and under her chin, he could see the determined spirit in her eyes and knew her thoughts were all for her son. But as they picked up their things and moved out of the tent, Shakir wished they’d been granted a little time of their own. Time enough for two people to let go, become sidetracked and live their dreams together once again.
“Where are we headed?” Nikki sneaked a peek at her compass in the late afternoon light. They weren’t on the same course as before they’d stopped at the Bedouin’s camp.
“We’re taking a slight detour.”
“What? But why? This climb is already so hard that we’ll never make it to the other side in the time you promised your brother. Even going a few miles out of our way is too much.” She was tired enough now that she could barely put one foot in front of the other.
“In the first place,” Shakir said from over his shoulder, “I’ll contact my brother when we reach the other side of the range. As soon as we’re within a few hours of the town of Kuh Friez. If we’re late, Tarik will use the time to do a more thorough assessment of our chances.”
Shakir stopped, held up his hand and then turned back to her. “In the second place, you’ll thank me for this detour.”
“Why? What’s up ahead?” She had visions of an oasis spa. With mineral baths and a foot massage.
“It’s one of the Taj Zabbar’s far-flung military outposts.”
“Are you crazy? We can’t go there. They’ll capture us. Maybe even kill us.”
Shakir tilted his head. “First they have to know we’re around. Kalil gave me a secret way to sneak into their camp without them being any the wiser.”
“It’s still a crazy idea. Why on earth would we want to sneak into the place? I don’t want to be within ten miles of Taj soldiers.”
“You’ll change your mind when you hear what we’re planning to do at this outpost.”
He was being deliberately obtuse and annoying. Her feet hurt too much to put up with him.
“All right. What are we planning on doing?”
“This outpost is used to replenish the troops. With food and supplies. And with fresh pack mules and mounts.”
“You’re not planning on stealing their food are you?”
He’d better not be. Her life and the life of her son were far more important than their taste buds. They should continue eating whatever he could catch in the wild.
“Nope,” he told he
r as his eyes lit with amusement. “You and I are crossing the rest of this mountain range in style—after we steal a couple of Taj horses.”
Oh, for heaven’s sake. Couldn’t he have asked her first?
“On horseback? I can’t.” She threw up her hands. “I’ve never been on a horse. I don’t know how to ride.”
Chapter 8
It took a lot of talking, but Shakir finally convinced Nikki that she could learn enough about riding in a few minutes to remain on the back of a horse as they crossed the mountains. While he’d argued his case, they kept heading in the direction of the Taj outpost.
She hadn’t said so, but he believed she was afraid of the horses. Once upon a time, he might’ve considered that a good possibility where Princess Nicole of Olianberg was concerned. But the thought of Nikki Olivier being afraid of anything never would’ve occurred to him after he’d seen her shoot a man to death. The more he heard her shaky arguments against using the horses, however, the more he felt he was right.
It was beyond him how a woman who’d had the nerve to come all the way to a distant and dangerous land, and who’d had no trouble heading off across a forbidding desert alone, could possibly be afraid of a domesticated animal. But Shakir wasn’t going to let a case of simple nerves stop them.
Twilight arrived across the land just as they entered the far end of the deep gorge that Kalil had promised would lead them to a spot below the horse stables. They’d climbed high enough in the foothills that they still had an hour of daylight left to make the trip.
Nikki was dressed in the same midnight-blue dress as before, and he wore the typical Bedouin male’s rust-colored and belted wool shawl covering his white linen shirt. That, along with his camo backpack, would allow them to blend in with the growing shadows on the stark and barren land, making them almost invisible.
After fifteen minutes of hard walking, he leaned in close and whispered, “This is the place. I’ll help you take the first few steps up.”
